T
he praetorian sentry stood behind the Coliseum museum
loosening his breastplate. That final gaggle of school kids
had waddled by his post and instantly he had skulked around
an ornamental swag and out the back door. He grunted. One
hundred percent Tuscan marble he stood, five foot tall and
over two thousand years old. And still he had his nose. But
statues, too, once in awhile need a smoke.

The sentry leaned his wood and iron spear against a
drain pipe. He unstrapped his brass helmet. Heavily then
he sagged against the museum's dumpster and lit up a
Marlboro.

The sentry inhaled. He thought, "I swear to God. When
I get out of this gig I'm going back to the L'ouvre."

The sentry puffed. "Half the people...Heck, almost no
one notices me here anyway."

The sentry shook his head. He dragged deeply. "They got
me situated by that tapestry near the fire extinguisher and
everyone just walks by. They're always looking at the
mummified finger with the gold ring. And the pike. And the
chamber pot. I might as well not even be in this joint at
all."

The sentry exhaled. "A couple years," he reflected. And
then he counted up the exact number of months left of his
term: Twenty. "Seems like a long time; but it'll go fast."

The late afternoon sun swept through the columns of the
arena, across the museum's tile rooftop and onto the creamy
gray musculature of the pensive marble statue. He sighed
away a plume of smoke. Absently he gazed on the dangling
leather straps of his soldier's belt. The straps gave his
tunic a certain drama, the curator assured. Then he heard a
young woman's voice:

"See there children? And those are the kinds of things
you'll be able to buy when you get older and become
accountants and make lots of euros."

The sentry glanced toward the unexpected voice as he
sucked in a lungful of smoke. A cluster of school kids ogled
him, each peering through the chainlink fence inquiringly.
The signorina still faced away.

"Oh shit," the statue thought. He cinched his helmet
for flight and was fumbling with his spear when he heard her
gasp. The signorina! She had seen him! And the cigarette
still hung from his lips! Children squealed now in alarm.
"Look," one kid cried, voicing the principal terror of all.
"Look! He's smoking!"

The statue dodged around a corner. The straps of his
soldier's belt slapped against his massive marble thighs as
he fled. But, "Shit," he remembered suddenly. He halted.
He flicked the Marlboro onto the sidewalk and ground it out
with his sandal-boot. Then, after looking both ways for
witnesses, he kicked the stub into the bushes.

"Caught!" he railed at himself. "They saw me smoking!
Shit! What a bitch! That'll be another year for me here! I'm
never getting out of this hole!"